The Owl: History Repeats (Hopefully)

The Owl

07/06/2006

It has been said that ignoring history dooms us to repeat it. Perhaps "doom" is the wrong word. The Owl has found a point in Browns history that might resemble the present for one new Browns player... and hopefully does...

This column is about the inexact science of drafting college football
players and why no one should write off Jerome Harrison just because the
Browns didn't get around to drafting the running back from Washington State until the fifth round.

Baby boomers - and sons and daughters of baby boomers - be
honest. Did you know prior to 1964 that a college named Morgan State even existed?

Morgan State is the alma mater of
the Browns' greatest running back since Jim Brown - Leroy Kelly. The Browns
didn't get around to taking him until the eighth round in 1964. It was the
same year they drafted Paul Warfield in the first round. They also drafted
Billy Truax, Don Shackleford, Richard Klein and Sammy Odoms before taking
Kelly.

Unlike the present day NFL, if a drafted player was no good he
got cut. Truax, Shackleford, Klein and Odoms never played in a regular
season game for the Browns.

The draft in 1964 was nothing like it is today. ESPN did not
exist, and there was virtually no national coverage of what is now second
only to the Super Bowl as a spectacle for the National Football League.

Kelly didn't even realize he had been drafted until 24 hours later
when a friend told him he had seen Kelly's name in the newspaper while
reading a list of players that had been selected.

"I knew the Browns were interested, but I didn't know it until I
was going to my room the next day and my friend told me about it," Kelly
said from his home in Willingboro N.J., a Philadelphia suburb. "I thought he was kidding,
because I wasn't drafted by the American Football League in their draft two
weeks earlier.

"Then the Browns' head scout, Paul Bixler, got in touch with me.
He and my coach Earl Banks and I got together for dinner and discussed the
whole situation."

Kelly found four other running backs in Hiram when he arrived for
his first training camp – Jim Brown, Ernie Green, Charlie Scales and Kenny Webb. Coach Blanton Collier would keep four and Green, Brown and Scales had
jobs secured. In the end, Webb made it easy because he balked at the money
the Browns offered, so he was cut.

"Jim kind of sat back and assessed the rookies," Kelly said. "If
he knew you could possibly help the team, he started talking to you. He
assessed that early in camp.

"One night he came to Walter Roberts and me and asked if we wanted
to go for a ride with him. He took us to an ice cream stand in a little city
outside of Hiram. We did some talking, so we knew he thought we were capable
of making the team."

No one knew in 1964 that Brown would play only two more seasons.
Kelly carried only six times for 12 yards as a rookie, but he was lethal as
a punt and kick returner. He averaged 19 yards on nine punt returns and 24.3
yards a kick return while sharing duties with Roberts, better known as "The
Flea."

Kelly did not see a lot of action offensively in the 1964
championship game against the Colts. Obviously with the final score 27-0
Browns, the Colts kicked off only once. Roberts returned the ball 21 yards.
Roberts' 13-yard return was the only punt return of game for the Browns.

Brown, however, praised Kelly for his kick and punt coverage in
the championship game. Linebacker Jim Houston said the Browns would not have
played for the title without Kelly as a punt returner.

"We had an exceptional performance by all the players in the
championship game,"
Houston said.
"We took it within ourselves to do the job. But, in order to get us there,
the team concept, forget about it, because there was one guy, as far as I'm
concerned, that put us there, and that was Leroy Kelly.

"I only say that because football is field position. Every time
Leroy caught the ball he was 110 miles an hour. He always put us in field
position. That's what made our success in 1964."

But Harrison is entering the NFL with something to
prove, just as Kelly did, and he is starting behind a proven runner (Reuben Droughns) just as Kelly did.

For Browns fans, this would be a great time for history to repeat
itself. After that slow start of 12 yards rushing on six carries as a
rookie, Kelly rushed for 7,262 yards in the next nine seasons on his way to
the Pro Football Hall of Fame.